Before I go on with the actual content of this topic, let me make a disclaimer - I am no saint by most accounts, but I do try to practice basic courtesy and sportsmanship when I am competing against others.
This post is also not intended to provoke others or point fingers - it is merely an account of my observations, and so please keep that in mind if you find yourself wanting to dig out a bazooka or something to deal with me.
And this is in the Game Corner because well... it's online gaming being discussed here.
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I was on PO today (nothing new...) and happened to be at the PokeBattleCenter. In the main chat, I chanced upon a discussion regarding ragequitters and fast forfeiters, which caught my interest. After following it for a while, I decided to chip in a little.
It was not the urge to criticize the ragequitters that started it - rather, it was because I noticed the members of the discussion seemed to think that just quitting matches whenever they felt like it was acceptable.
So I just asked them if they ever spared a thought for the politeness of such actions. Obviously, I was promptly labeled as a baby and told to take it easy.
Now, this is something I simply cannot do.
Maybe now I should share a little about my real self. While I am spending most of my time pursuing my Bachelors degree, I do have some spare time to play with. Aside from online gaming, I am involved also in some tutoring at high school level (also college level for a brief stretch this year). If the opportunity presents itself, I also go back to my high school to help out with my old scout troop - some of the present senior scouts are sadly incompetent to the point that they cannot even teach their juniors a basic reef knot (for those who didn't have the chance to learn some knots, a reef knot is among the simplest of knots).
One thing I try to teach my students and junior scouts is to respect others - it was one thing we had drilled into our skulls when I myself was a junior in high school. It is one thing to playfully use vulgar language on a friend, and another to blatantly curse someone's mother to their face. Likewise, when competing, one should always respect one's opponent.
Really, since when was it acceptable for people to just walk out of a competition/game/match just like that? Even if you wanted to do so, would giving your opponent a 'good game' or something equivalent be too much to ask for? Similarly for forfeiting because there isn't a point to the match anymore - say you're facing a shedinja with no moves that can kill it. Would it be that tedious and/or awful to type a 'I have no way to kill that thing', or thank your opponent for the match before forfeiting?
In chess matches, I've seen players gently tipping over their king when they concede a match, and offering a handshake to their opponent. What's there to lose by doing the online equivalent?
Always keep in mind that when you start a match with someone, you've already taken some of their time - and that's something that no one can ever reclaim. You might say "But it's just a few seconds/minutes!" but remember that many grains of sand a mountain make. And since most people play online games to unwind, you might have just made someone's day a whole lot shittier by quitting a match just like that.
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That's it for the topic of ragequitting and forfeiting. Now I'd like to touch on what's probably the more hopeless cause - trash talking.
It is one thing to argue with someone and insult them - personal vendettas tend to move beyond the realm of manners, for the most part. But to outright trash talk an opponent is nothing short of bad manners. So what if your opponent wants to run a cliched, overused team? So what if they use move-sets that they like but which aren't top-tier competitive? Freedom of expression should extend to online gaming also, and so gamers should not talk down to an opponent like that. So what if you cannot see the logic in your opponent's team - they might have some train of thought which never occurred to others.
A simple analogy could be made using university-level mathematics for those who are unfamiliar with its theorems and axioms - it would appear to be as alien as a foreign language to the uninitiated, but to a student majoring in maths, it would probably be as clear as daylight.
I've actually seen a match where someone ran a whimsicott, chansey (Eviolite, obviously), and blissey against a ghost monotype team. Obviously, that was match-up that was bad beyond description, but the non-ghost dude still persisted in trash-talking the ghost monotype player as if there was no tomorrow. He did win, and called his opponent a noob - the monotype player was hardly a noob if you ask me, given that the match went 6-5 despite the ghosts' disadvantage.
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Now, the responses to my arguments in the aforementioned discussion were obviously negative. I was told that "You need to get your priorities in life right", that "QUITTING IS NOT A F****** HONOR THING" and that "You are looking too far into things".
Let's not even touch the topic of honor - whatever happened to basic courtesy and manners? If manners and self-conduct are not to be prioritized, then just what the hell should we concern ourselves with? If you say 'survival' or something like that, let it be made known that even the garbagemen over here are a polite bunch that always have a smile and cheerful greeting for those whose trash they collect.
I'm going to assume that most people on PO are young or young-ish, and that we all have a decent number of years ahead of us (barring accidents). It stands to reason then that this problem would only worsen over time if left unaddressed.
Maybe I'm being old-fashioned. Maybe my time in the scouts and high school was different from what goes on nowadays - and it hasn't even been ten years (but then again, the world is progressing at a breakneck pace, so that's not unexpected). Maybe I'm holding on to a set of obsolete principles that no longer have a place in today's online scene. At the risk of sounding like I make racial stereotypes, maybe it's my Asian heritage that causes this 'baby' behavior.
For the record, they finally backed off when I resignedly stated that I might be a dinosaur who had no place in the world of online gaming anymore.
Now, some of you might agree with them, but hear me when I say this - the internet should NOT be a domain devoid of courtesy. Anonymity is not an excuse for bad conduct. If moderators on the gaming servers can kick/ban people for typing in all uppercase letters, then I don't see why there's such an opposition against the idea of trying to maintain basic courtesies online. This rudeness is probably the root cause for people going all rage-like on the servers to begin with, so maybe some thought should be spared for this matter.
Call me immature for not tolerating the internet's nonsense if you may, but there are just some things in life that should not be compromised. If these people are so adamant on defending their rights as enshrined in the Constitution, then I don't see why they cannot try to defend what's LEFT of humanity in this rotting society.
Yes, I am a believer in the saying 'progress has enriched the lives of mankind, but destroyed a large portion of man's humanity'. Call me a nihilist, anarchist, or whatever, but... this is just wrong. I do try to uphold the principles which I was taught to value, and in doing so maybe I'm swimming against the current.
Is it too much to hope that one's actions would eventually make a difference in a matter such as this?
I once wanted to be a teacher, but if this is how things will continue to play out in the future, I'm glad that I ended up majoring in optometry.
I tip my hat to you if you're actually reading this line, and more so if you actually give a damn about what has been said.
Either way, thank you for your time.